1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to wireless communications, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for providing a machine-type communication (MTC) service in a wireless communication system.
2. Related Art
A global system for mobile communication (GSM) is a radio technology which has been developed as a system for standardizing radio communication systems in Europe. A general packet radio service (GPRS) is a technique introduced to provide a packet switched data service in a circuit switched data service provided from the GSM. The GPRS constitutes a GSM/EDGE radio access network (GERAN). A universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS) is a wireless communication system based on wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA). E-UTRAN is a wireless communication system based on orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA).
Machine-type communication (MTC) is one type of data communication including one or more entities not requiring human interactions. That is, the MTC refers to the concept of communication based on a network such as the existing GERAN, UMTS, long-term evolution (LTE), or the like used by a machine device instead of a mobile station (MS) used by a user. The machine device used in the MTC can be called an MTC device. There are various MTC devices such as a vending machine, a machine of measuring a water level at a dam, etc. That is, the MTC is widely applicable in various fields. The MTC device has features different from that of a typical MS. Therefore, a service optimized to the MTC may differ from a service optimized to human-to-human communication. In comparison with a current mobile network communication service, the MTC can be characterized as a different market scenario, data communication, less costs and efforts, a potentially great number of MSs for communication, wide service areas, low traffic per MS, etc.
Meanwhile, the number of MTC devices is expected to be much greater than the number of legacy devices, and a probability of performing operations of the plurality of MTC devices simultaneously is high due to a feature of a typical machine-to-machine (M2M) service. Therefore, there is a possibility that a network resource is not enough, and thus a method of effectively handling a network signaling load for the MTC device is very important. Accordingly, overload control for handling an overload in core network signaling and radio access network (RAN) signaling has been recently emerged as the most important issue in the MTC.
Various methods can be proposed for the overload control. Although a method of limiting access of the MTC device in a case where a network has an unnecessary overload has been proposed up to now, a method of minimizing a signaling load may be proposed. Accordingly, a method of minimizing a signaling load by the use of simultaneous signaling by grouping the MTC devices may be proposed. This can be called MTC group handling.
There is a need to define information for effective operation control of the MTC device when the MTC group handling is performed.